


Stealing Warmth and Looking for Light

by Lemur710



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, MalecSecretSanta2018, Post-3A
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-19 19:10:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17007495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lemur710/pseuds/Lemur710
Summary: It’s winter when the lights go out in Brooklyn. Magnus and Alec keep each other warm.(Set post 3x10 “Erchomai” and Magnus’s loss of magical powers.)





	Stealing Warmth and Looking for Light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dark-alice-lilith](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Dark-alice-lilith).



> Notes: A Malec Secret Santa gift for Dark-alice-lilith. I tried to bring you the fluff! I hope you enjoy. Happy holidays!

Alec enjoyed the dark shadows of the city, illuminated only by the headlights of passing vehicles. Inside the shops still open during the blackout, cellphone lights shone through bottles of water on countertops, creating makeshift lanterns. Falling snow caught in beams of moonlight, glittering like crystals. It would have been beautiful walk with Magnus beside him, but as it was, he was eager to get home and get inside. Even Brooklyn was dark.

“Magnus?” he called out as he came in the door. The keys rattled in his hand, a new addition since they’d lost Magnus’s wards to keep out the unwelcome. The response he received was a thump and a muffled, “Ow! Shoot!”

Alec wandered into the kitchen. He thought to remove his jacket as he usually did, but the winter chill had already crept through the windows. In the darkness, he could just make out a familiar shadow in the utility closet. “Magnus? What are you doing?”

“The lights went out. The power panel, breaker box—I know it’s in here somewhere.”

“The power’s out in the whole city.”

“I know that.” Magnus emerged from the closet. A cobweb clung to the spikes of his dark hair and dust smudged his cheeks, making Alec miss his usual eyeshadow even more. “I thought I’d be able to do something for the loft.”

Alec plucked the web from Magnus’s hair. “You can’t. They’ll have to fix it at the city main.”

“Ah.” Magnus dusted off his jacket, fingers twitching idly. He still did that, Alec noticed, as if checking for the feeling of magic in his skin, though it’d not been there for weeks. “Well, we certainly have candles. Matches, on the other hand.”

“We have some. I’ve seen some.” Alec pressed a kiss to Magnus’s mouth and went off in search of matches, using his phone for light. 

“Matches. So primitive.” Magnus sniffed. The kitchen drawers rattled as he searched through them. 

“How was your day before the power went out?” Alec wiped at his cold nose, opening and closing cupboards, scanning his flashlight across the contents.

“I must have sent a hundred and one emails—emails, Alexander! Intolerably slow compared to fire messages, how are emails the best mundanes have?—canceling all my appointments because I’m ‘under the weather.’”

“That’s pretty much the truth, isn’t it? It’s all they need to know anyway.” The cellphone’s light glinted on a dusty book of matches. The shiny cover read _Limelight – New York, London, Chicago_. “Ah.”

“Yes, but they keep replying to reschedule and I have nothing to say. I can’t very well send an email that I’m terminally ill. ‘Dear client, Condolences on the curse upon your family. Unfortunately, I can no longer make our appointment because I’m dying.’”

Alec halted, his fingers sliding around the cold cardboard of the matchbook. “Dying?”

He turned to see Magnus wave his hand dismissively. “I’m exaggerating. I’m in a bad mood.”

“Okay,” Alec said slowly. “I found matches.”

“Ah! Good.” Magnus pulled several candelabras to the edge of the kitchen counter. “So then, after I sent all these pathetically slow emails canceling all my appointments, I couldn’t find my phone charger. I’ve never had to use a phone charger. Never.”

As Magnus talked, Alec struck the flimsy match. The orange glow warmed his fingertips, but the frigid fear bleeding through his belly hadn’t been banished with the wave of Magnus’s hand. Losing Magnus, being without Magnus—magic or no magic—that wasn’t a world Alec ever wanted to be in again. And how often had Magnus himself done this? Alec touched fire to wick. Beside him, out of the corner of his eye, he watched the dark shadow of his boyfriend glow brighter with each candle, this radiant person he never thought he’d get to have. He listened to Magnus fuss and rant about his day, about the unreliability of the building’s Wi-Fi and how much dust got everywhere now that his continual cleaning spells had ceased.

He loved Magnus so much, words never did it justice.

Alec’s heart ached, that cold in his gut seeping through him even as the candles flickered with heat, and he wondered how many people Magnus had loved and lost. The jealousy and insecurity he sometimes felt at that thought didn’t come to him now. Instead, he felt overwhelming admiration. Magnus hurt. He loved and he lost and he kept living. When darkness fell, he looked for light.

“On top of everything, my email address ended up being MagnusBane17. Are there 16 other people named Magnus Bane? No, there aren’t, so clearly some of my clients are up to things they shouldn’t be, doing who-knows-what on the Dark Web and using my name to do it. Is that what it’s called? The Dark Web?”

“I don’t know.” Alec blew out the match and dropped the scorched husk. “You’re the only Magnus Bane I want,” he breathed as he pulled Magnus to him and silenced his words. Magnus’s shoulders eased immediately with a sigh and he welcomed Alec’s arms around him.

“One of seventeen.”

“The best one. The only one that matters.” Alec kissed him, brushed his nose against Magnus’s.

“Your nose is cold.”

“I know. That’s why I’m trying to warm it up.”

Magnus scoffed playfully and pulled away. “Stealing my warmth,” he scolded, but tugged Alec with him.

They curled up together on the couch beneath a blanket, both still bundled up in their jackets. “I should have put in a fireplace when I still could,” Magnus muttered as he wiggled and shifted beside Alec, finding a comfortable position.

“I’m glad you didn’t.” Alec laid back, stretching his legs out along the couch and pulling Magnus against him. “Then I wouldn’t need to steal your warmth.”

Magnus gave a small _tsk_ but his smile was soft and happy. He rubbed his socked feet against Alec’s beneath the blanket and settled against his chest. “They do say body heat is the best to combat hypothermia.”

“I like when ‘they’ say things like that.” Alec let his hand travel over the muscles of Magnus’s arms, firm and appealing even through his layers. He enjoyed the familiar tingle of arousal sparkling through him with Magnus’s body so close to his.

“Hm,” Magnus hummed contentedly. “It is nice. Though that depends on the body.”

“Oh?”

“One winter I found myself caught in a small village on the coast of Iceland.”

Alec smiled, loving the feel of Magnus’s voice rumbling against him. “Tell me.”

“They hadn’t been expecting a heavy snow,” Magnus continued, “but there it came, and the sea was violent, spitting and rolling. I’ve never seen so much ice. Usually Iceland is quite green. We all huddled inside the home of—oh, I can’t remember their names now...She was an impressive woman. A proper descendant of Viking queens. Somethings-dottir, but anyway, we all holed up inside her turf house. All of us. Her children, her brothers and sisters, her cousins, and all her sheep, horses and cows, too. So there I was, in fine brocade—”

“Of course you were.”

“Of course. And I’m stuffed between two of the smelliest sheep ever to grace this Earth, _sweating_ almost, because they’re living, breathing wool sweaters. The fire, too! They burned whale oil and it poured this _horrendous_ odor into the room. One room! One tiny little room with dirt walls with this stinking, smoking fire, ten grown Vikings, a farm’s worth of livestock, and me.”

Alec chuckled just imagining it, feeling Magnus’s laugh bubble beside him. “So you’re saying this is better or...?”

Magnus leaned up to press a kiss to Alec’s lips. Alec opened to it immediately, letting that lazy spark burn a little hotter as his tongue flicked gently against Magnus’s lips.

“Hm,” Magnus said, still close enough to kiss. “You’re a better kisser than the sheep.”

Alec snorted unattractively, fondly, and slid his hand down Magnus’s waist to cup his thigh. He pulled his boyfriend’s leg over, savoring that hitch in Magnus’s breath and the way their joined heat bloomed underneath the blanket.

“Mm.” Magnus brushed his nose against Alec’s throat; his wasn’t cold at all. “You smell better, too.”

“I try,” Alec replied, then lost track of any further cleverness as he sank into the wet slide of Magnus’s mouth and the intoxicating weight of his body pressing him into the couch. 

They broke apart only when the power resumed with a whirr and several lamps flashed on, filling the loft with bright light. Alec’s lips felt soft and well-used. “Power’s back on,” he said, though it didn’t need saying.

“Siri,” Magnus called out, “turn off the lights.”

“Okay,” an unfamiliar voice replied. Alec noticed a small circular device light up in the corner. “Turning off the lights.”

In an instant, the lights blinked back out, returning them to the flickering darkness of the candles and the city glow outside the window. 

“Hey, when did you put that in?” Alec asked as the device dimmed and went dormant again.

“I’ll tell you later.” Magnus lifted up enough to pull the blanket higher over both of them. “We were in the middle of something.” Then he pressed back down and Alec decided he didn’t care all that much after all.


End file.
